I’ve never felt so…deliciously ogled. So sexy. So wanted. It’s more addictive than awkward. But I’m also pretty sure he’s not about to toss me over his shoulder, drop me on the firefighter’s bunk, and fuck me to pieces.
“I was…showering,” I say, recovering from the hot stare-off as I bend to grab the fallen towel. When I rise, Corbin’s already stripped off his T-shirt and thrusts it at me while looking away. Like he had to jerk his head so as not to look.
“Here. Just in case,” he says, his voice strained.
I tug it on, laughing. “I mean, what exactly is this in case of?”
“Um,” he says, still staring at the concrete wall. “In case you don’t have…clothes. Yeah. Clothes.”
“I could have worn just an apron,” I tease.
“Mabel,” he says, a gravelly warning. Does Corbin have apron fantasies of me?
“Do you like aprons?”
He breathes out hard through his nostrils. If I peeked, I’d bet his eyes would be closed.
“Yes,” he bites out.
I’m tempted to sayYou, me, same page. I’m so tempted to shed this T-shirt and put my apron back on. But I don’t. I’m a good girl.
For now.
With his shirt falling to mid-thigh, it’s probably safe for him to turn around. “I’m decent,” I say, and when he pivots around, shirtless now, I notice he’s holding a gift-wrapped box and offering it to me.
“You got me a present?”
“For opening day,” he says, and every word still sounds rough.
I take it, but the tables are turned, and I’m distracted by his shirtlessness and, it turns out, by his scent. I dip my nose so I can inhale the lake-and-campfire aroma of his shirt.
“Corbin,” I say, “I think…I should get dressed, and you should put this back on. We seem to have traded one problem for another.”
He breathes out hard, his gaze swinging down to my bare thighs, then back up my frame, like he’s taking in the full impact of me in his T-shirt and nothing else. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess the shirt swap didn’t help.”
He exits, and I quickly strip off his shirt, then get dressed again in my skort and the T-shirt from the shop with the bakery’s name across the front. I call out, “It’s safe now. I promise.”
Footsteps echo across the concrete floor, and Corbin strides back into the dorm area, still, of course, shirtless.
“Not safe formeyet,” I joke, as breezy as I can be to try to douse the heat shimmering between us. I toss him his shirt. He catches it with one hand and tugs it on.
Shame about the loss of the view. But it’s for the best.
“Let’s try this again,” he says, then picks up the gift box from where I left it on one of the bunks. He hands it to me.
“What is this?” I ask, a little wonder in my voice.
“It’s a gift. Also called a present. You open it and you pretend to like it.”
I roll my eyes, but even so, my heart feels squishy. “I don’t have to pretend to like it.”
Something flashes in his eyes. Fondness maybe? I’m not sure, but it seems heartfelt. Dangerously so. He clenches his fists as if fighting the impulse to stride over and take me in his arms.
I run a finger along the pretty purple ribbon with white polka dots. “It’s almost too pretty to open. I don’t even care what’s in here. I just love the way it looks,” I say.
“Open it, Mabel,” he says, a clear command that sends a shiver down my spine.
“Yes, sir.”
